


we weren't meant to despair

by yamzy



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Infidelity, Introspection, M/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 09:32:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15627816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yamzy/pseuds/yamzy
Summary: he will never be junmyeon’s girlfriend or wife, just as he will never just be his partner, friend, or brother. but yixing knows that he will forever be his.alternately: in which yixing is junmyeon’s biggest secret.





	we weren't meant to despair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wonseokie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonseokie/gifts), [slytherbyun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherbyun/gifts).



> title is inspired by a line from edel garcellano’s poem _querida _.__

Yixing didn’t even know what time it was already.

 

He had been staring at his apartment’s ceiling for a while, looking at the dirty crevices which no matter how much he scrubbed, wouldn’t budge. It has been a while since he last came to his apartment, it seemed, as the gray cobwebs reminded him from where they sat and gathered, even— _the nerve_ —on one of the four corners of his studio apartment’s ceiling. The dirt wasn’t the only problem he could see; the entire ceiling seemed to be minutes away from falling, begging to rest on the cold, dusty cemented floor. Somehow though, despite the imminent threat of the ceiling’s collapse— _collapsing on him_ , Yixing didn’t feel an ounce of alarm. Was that how it felt like to not give a damn about himself? Well. It wasn’t like he had never felt pain before. He would be fine.

 

The harsh rain outside of his windows—hitting his glass window shutters violently—did not make his ceiling’s situation any better. _Drip drop drip drop_. There was a hole in his ceiling, missing his bed by a few inches, that has been nagging him for the entirety of the time that he has remained on his bed. It was begging too, begging to be fixed. Still, he remained unfazed.

 

_Drip! Drop!_

One particularly volatile drop splashed on his face. He winced. If it were one of his ceiling’s ways of enacting revenge on the homeowner’s neglect, he let it. He has felt pain before. He would be fine.

 

The electric fan kept roaring, spinning in its stationary spot with all its might in the corner of his studio apartment. It was an old one that his grandfather brought to his place when the old man was still alive and worried sick over his only grandson moving to the city. _“Make sure to put your backpack in front of you, so that your belongings wouldn’t get snatched!”_ the old man would remind him constantly. _“Never forget to bring food all the time. You never know when you’re going to get hungry,”_ his grandfather would say, handing him a piece of banana and a cupcake bought from the local bakery. Those cupcakes were his grandfather’s favorite, and despite its price, the old man would always indulge—thinking that they were Yixing’s favorite too. They weren’t—he just told his grandfather that so the old man would have an excuse to buy himself a luxury he absolutely wanted but won’t allow himself to have.

 

Sometimes, when money was _really_ tight, all Yixing’s grandfather could give him were a piece of banana and a pack of crackers.

 

Every single time though, all he kept was the crackers. The banana would be swiftly and quietly disposed to their family dog, Yellow. The same used to go for the cupcake, until Yellow herself got sick from it, and puked in their backyard. Since then, he would break it down into pieces, and scatter it around the chickens. He could never bring both to school; the children would bully him for not having something store-brought.

 

Or at least, that’s what he told his grandfather when he got caught.

 

The old man then just ruffled his hair and patted it. He never really did tell Yixing whether he believed his excuse, and frankly, he was thankful for that. He didn’t know how to tell his grandfather that he wouldn’t really be bullied in school for bringing fruit and cheap cupcakes. He didn’t know how to tell his grandfather that he wanted to blend in with his richer classmates, whose lunchboxes did not contain bananas or cupcakes, but instead the pre-packaged cookies and biscuits and chocolates brought from the store. He didn’t really tell his grandfather that he was striving for a life that wasn’t his, but somehow, from the glint in his grandfather’s eyes, Yixing believed that the old man knew.

 

How fitting, now that he thought about it. He has always wanted something that wasn’t his, it seemed. This, he believed—or at least, he’d like to believe—that his grandfather forgave him for.

 

But the old man was not here anymore to convince him of his forgiveness. The only companions Yixing had were the four, water-stained walls of his studio apartment, the debilitating, dripping ceiling, and the cold, hard, cemented floor—and he knew that all of them refused to forgive him. They were the witnesses of Yixing’s biggest sins, somehow non-consensually pulled into the mix to become voyeurs to his exploits. His house has resented him, resorting to falling apart than let itself continue to be the home of someone like him.

 

It was silly, perhaps, to look at his apartment as if it were a person, and not an empty shell for him to reside in. But there was one time, in another rainy day like today, that Yixing decided to forego eating lunch and instead spent his money in the fancy bookstore at the corner of his office block. He braved the rain, let his leather shoes get acquainted with the muddy water, and ignored his protesting stomach to go to the bookstore, and grab the first book that fit within his budget. See: Junmyeon was sad that day. If there were anything that made him happy, it was reading. And Yixing liked Junmyeon happy, so honestly, it wasn’t an unsurprising turn of events. He bought the book with the sole intention of giving it to Junmyeon, but he didn’t expect that _she_ would have the same idea—with a book that apparently cost half of Yixing’s monthly salary. So, he read it, and allowed himself to be the listener of a story of a house and a young, deaf boy who became unlikely friends.

 

On a wet, rainy day like today, a young, deaf boy run into an abandoned, torn-down house. The house talked to him, and told him his stories. But as its story folded to an end, the house disintegrated more and more, as its only purpose in life was to share its story. Now that it has fulfilled that, it was free to die, disappear, and return to nothingness. The boy protested, of course, but it was not like the house had a choice. It has fulfilled its reason of being, it’s now free to escape the confines of its existence. Goodbye. But the boy still wouldn’t accept it. It ran away, setting forth a multitude of actions that would not have happened if he had just accepted the plans of fate. If he had just stayed in his lane.

 

That was when Yixing realized the life in his house, the stories in its walls, the comfort the cold, hard, cemented floor tried to offer him—the love it tried to provide for him. But he refused it, ran away, and sought the warmth of someone who was forbidden to him. No wonder his house is in ruins—he didn’t, no, _wouldn’t_ , let it serve its purpose.

 

The apartment was bought for him by his grandparents, who decided that investing their life savings on their only grandchild was a smart move to do. Unfortunately for them, they ended up with Yixing—Yixing who insolently, adamantly, blindly ran away from the house to go to another man’s house and enjoy the store-brought cookies (—that _she_ bought) that weren’t meant for him.

 

It was the fucking cupcakes all over again, and because his grandfather wasn’t around anymore, his apartment has spared him no judgment, punishing him in his grandparents’ defense. It was alright—he let it. He has felt pain before.

 

 _Drip, drop, drip, drop,_ his ceiling screamed. He sighed.

 

 _Drip, drop, drip, drop_ , his ceiling screamed louder. He sighed, loudly.

 

This was how they communicated. In the absence of a spoken language, linguists would be astounded to know that Yixing and his house shared a common language—pain. The house held a history of pain: his grandfather’s dissatisfaction with his weakness and his inability to fix the then-breaking down house, his grandmother’s observation with her husband’s frustrations and Yixing’s collection of resentment. All of these were woven together to create a language of their shared pain, recording the bitter taste of hurt that all three of them hid but continued to feel.

 

Somehow, along the way, the house learned to be fluent in that language, holding the history of the people that resided within its walls—but Yixing had run away. So now, here he lay motionless in his bed, refusing to learn the language that the house continuously tried to teach him. He knew pain wasn’t the only ingredient behind the words that were being fed to him, as his grandparents’ forgiveness has also contributed, but he still did not want to listen. Listening would remind him—of how much pain he has caused, of how much pain he was in, of how much pain he would continue to experience if he hadn’t chosen this, of how much pain his grandparents were in because he had chosen this—listening would pave way to regret, and he refused to make a language from that. Creating a language of regret would be acknowledging it, and allowing it to continue even with him gone. It all ended with him.

 

_Drip! Drop! Drip! Drop!_

 

He closed his eyes. It was almost pitch black inside his studio apartment, as he refused to stand up and open the lights. The only rays of light that managed to crawl in the house were from the streetlamps outside, trying their best to penetrate his windowpanes. Nighttime has come, and he still hasn’t moved from where he laid on his bed. There probably wouldn’t be a change of his position anytime soon, as he was allowing himself to . . . recuperate? To heal? To think?

 

No. Thinking was. . . . If he had been active in the practice of thinking, he wouldn’t have ended up in where he was right now. What he had been doing instead was trying to entertain himself while he let himself waste away into nothingness. He, similar to the house, has served its purpose, right?

 

He could feel it, hell, he could almost taste it: _she_ was going to find out soon.

 

Soon, he will have finally finished being Junmyeon Kim’s best-kept secret.

 

It will be time for him to fade into thin air.

 

And, it will fine. He has felt pain before. He would be fine.

 

 

He swallowed the tears that threatened to come out from him.

 

 

 

Of course, he couldn’t.

 

 

So, he just sang himself to the lullaby of his own crying.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this before when i thought i'd have the drive and emotional stability to see this until its end. but alas, after extensively outlining, this fic is stuck in its first chapter, with the rest still in limbo. the theme of the fic is quite common though, so i think i'll just let others write this, in a sense, if that makes sense (because i know i don't). at the moment, i'll mark this as complete, some sort of tribute to yixing's troubled thoughts as he navigates between deciding to stay or to leave or to whatever, but i know i'll revisit this soon.
> 
> this is a weird fic (or chapter?? idk), i know. i'd add a "but-" sentence but i don't really have any explanation. i like places, i like locations, because at our worsts, the walls of our rooms can be our only companion. this _thing _, i guess, is a celebration of that. dedicated to mamang and ninna (i'm too lazy to get ur twitter info), who share my thing for places. sorry this couldn't be happier, nor clearer. (maybe that's why you guys should write the better stuff)__


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